2002 Two Pounds

Five different £2 coins were issued in 2002 – A coin with the standard ages of man reverse plus four different coins representing each country of the UK to commemorate the 17th Commonwealth Games that were held that year. These four commemorative coins have the lowest mintages for circulating £2 coins.

The obverse has the portrait of the Queen by Ian Rank-Broadley. The reverse is by Matthew Bonaccorsi and shows an athlete holding a flying banner. The circle to the left of the athlete contains one of four different UK flags representing England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland . The Scotland reverse shows the St Andrew Saltire and the Welsh reverse has a very clear Welsh Dragon. The flags for England and Northern Ireland are very similar and can be hard to distinguish on used coins. The English flag is a plain cross of St George and the Northern Ireland flag is very similar but has a small crowned hand in the centre.

The 2002 commonwealth games were held in England to coincide with the Queen’s Golden Jubilee celebrations. The 281 events over 17 sports were mainly hosted at the City of Manchester Stadium. 72 countries, territories and Commonwealth regions participated:

The obverse portrait of the Queen by Ian Rank-Broadley has been used on all UK coinage from 1998 to 2015 and is the fourth portrait of the Queen used on coinage. At the time of writing, this portrait is due to be replaced by a new one, to be unveiled in 2015.

The reverse design shows the ages of man. Represented are the Iron Age, the Industrial Revolution, the Electronic Age and the Internet Age. The edge quote ‘STANDING ON THE SHOULDERS OF GIANTS’ is from a letter by Sir Isaac Newton from 1676 in which he wrote: ‘If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants’, which may have been a modest nod to other scientists, but some say that it may have been poking fun at the stature of the recipient of the letter, Robert Hooke. The expression ‘Standing on the shoulders of giants’ pre-dates Newton by many centuries:

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